it was at the request of the neighborhood that supervisor wiener worked to amend the mills act to better understand the workings of that act and how it could be used. and at their request and he spoke specifically about the benefit and how it would benefit the neighborhood. they also -- the neighbors also requested the survey. if they chose not to do the survey and some didn't know about the survey, i find it very hard to believe they didn't know about the survey when they the ones who requested the survey. so dtna supports this historical designation of the district based on its historical merit as well as it fulfills several

objectives and policy developments that were developed during the the market octavia area plan. this plan k5u8 called for the designation and protection of important historical buildings. thank you. >> president fong: thank you. is there any additional public comment on this item?lfjçlñpizgç >> good afternoon. i had a card filled o owd out. should i be here now? i john sham bray. i own a property at 75 pierce street and have been there 28 years. i've come to just about all the hearings and have been in opposition to it since it came to my attention in early 2011. only because i feel that thek3j. historic designation of our neighborhood should have been

something that the neighbors, who purchased and maintained these homes, should ask for, not something that the city should be imposing on us. beginning, what does this do for the homeowners, other than add additional loopholes, additional fees, additional approvals, over and above the already inconsistent application of the existing law. it seems unfair to me because they offered nothing. the mills act was redone to make it easier for property owners to that's great. doesn't help me a bit. i've been there 27 years. it's not going to help me at all. they said at one time it would help us increase the values of our property. i think the city has backed off on that since our property values are already a little bit

over the top. what i want to know is why the department doesn't have to follow the same rules that i have to follow when i am asked for something to be done. when i ask for utility undergrounding for our neighborhood i had to talk to every homeowners, not tenants, i had to come to the city and research it, i had to get the name of every single homeowner in a four contiguous block area and then it was my responsibility to get 51% of the homeownership, not 51% of the people who wanted to respond, 51% of the homeowners before the city would consider my request for utility undergrounding. i'm going through the same process again with sewer replacement, and paving of our streets. it's been neglected for over 27 years. how can you force this on us affected, responding to that

survey. somebody said that you're working at the request of the community. you are not. nobody asked for this. it was sent to us. it's being forced on us. and it is not something we want. if you're going to make us a historic district, reward us, don't punish us. thank you. >> presiden.>> hi. susan -- and i live at 47 pierce street. i have lived in my house since 1978. and i have submitted several e-mails on this topic. in addition to the things that john shombury just mentioned, i know that there was a statement that how could people not know about this survey. well first of all it came out at a very bad time, just before

christmas holidays, a lot of people did not receive e-mails, they did not receive postcards. and in going around, talking to neighbors, we found out that there are a lot of people that are absolutely and adamantly against it. the other issue i want to bring up is my house is on the park. and i'm going to be under more scrutiny than any other piece of property. there's 12 properties that are going to be directly impacted by that. most of the remodels of the neighborhoods have been to the back of the building. my building, i will not be able to do much of anything to it. while i am -- you know, i'm -- have limited income, i probably cannot do that. but in selling my house, i don't know that if that will be a disincentive. so i think that's something to think about. and in addition to that, i've been told that i have to improvements to my house, that

are completely out of the range of my economic means. so prior to this proposal, i could have done these things. but i can't now. and so when john says how is it going to affect us, i'm the one that has to foot the bill on it, not the duboce triangle's neighborhood association. so please take into consideration the human factor in this and that people like myself, on limited income, cannot afford these kinds of things. thank you. >> president fong: any additional public comment? seeing none, the the public comment portion is closed, and opening up to commissioners. commissioners hillis. >> commissioner hillis: thanks. just a couple of questions. first, i mean i think this is a gem of a neighborhood, pretty unique, and as you read kind of the details, itá5( #çn makes it, you know, more unique, how

intact a lot of these buildings are. and you can -- you know, these neighborhoods don't preserve themselves. you can walk around, like this gentleman said, and see asbestos shingles put on victorines, it's not everybody who kind of takes this seriously, in places, and you can just walk around and see the results. but it seems like the opposition -- again, on the city's process, i think it's not -- we rarely get this much response to a survey, or, you know, looking through the amount of meetings that the planning staff held. i mean i thought it was remarkable, actually, how much outreach has been done, you know, it's testament that people are here and people are responding to the survey, that speaks to the outreach that's been done. but the objection seemed to be about process in kind of future process, when somebody goes in and makes a renovation to a

building, what is different now that you're in a historic district as opposed to now, how is that process different? >> okay. so right now, the -- it is considered an identified eligible historic district for the purpose of ceqa. so changes to the exterior of the building currently are reviewed for compatibility. the department held many community meetings, as we mentioned, and we heard back from the community that there were certain parts of buildings that they were not interested in seeing very strenuous review. for example, the rear of buildings, in a typical landmark district, any exterior alteration that requires a buildings permit would also require a certificate of proposesness, a hearing of the preservation commission, or in some cases an administrative certificate of appropriateness.

what the department did was look at these different buildings elements and possible scopes of work, to see if we could streamline the process for alterations and require less review, and in many cases not require additional review in the form even of an administrative certificate of appropriateness. so many alterations of the non-visible rear properties would not require additional review so that process would be the same. other examples include the replacement of windows which is a big topic. the department currently has a windows replacement standards document that requires that all buildings in the city,joprx just buildings in landmark districts or even identified eligible landmark districts or even any random building, if it originally had wood windows, the department requires that any replacement windows also be wood. so this comes up frequently.

it came up frequently in the -- process, and we did try to address this and emphasized that currently, one cannot replace windows that were historically wood with vinyl windows. regardless of this landmark designation. so that's another option. and because we have these window replacement standards, the department is -- has proposed, in the designation ordinance, that the review of windows for wood windows would not require a certificate of appropriateness. so it wouldn't be additional review if they are wood windows. >> but about in some cases this would be by virtue of this being a landmark vict. >> in it some cases we have a long designation -- or tailored for certain scopes of work with the goal of putting the larger scopes of work, larger visible

horizonal or vertical additions, garage insertions, to try to limit the larger projects that would require full historic prsks commission review. >> then this question of the park and its inclusion in the district or not, what was the rationale for not -- >> this actually came before the 2011 work program discussion on the hpc. the department never proposed adding elements in the park for review. the park has changed quite a bit since it was constructed in 1900. there's a muni portal. there's a publicl basketball co. it's not a high integrity park and the department did not feel that additional review was required. and as we stated on the record at the 2011hpc hearing, the department proposed initially to include the park boundaries as a

gesture and we use the word gesture towards noting the relationship between the park and the residential buildings. because there was so much physical fabric that was lost it didn't seem to make sense to identify elements in the park as character defining that would require review. >> commissioner hillis: and then the mills act is confusing to me. can i summarize how it works. because i understand if you're a new property owner it could benefit you, if you've owned your property for some time it doesn't necessarily. >> correct. the department has been clear about that. the mills act property tax reduction would provide the most benefit to property owners who have owned their properties since 1999. some of the residents and owners who have owned their building for 20 or 30 years, they already pay low property tax so the bills act calculations would not help them. it would not reduce their

property taxes anymore. if you just purchase property and it's a contributor to the district you would have high property taxes. the only people who can apply for the mills act property tax reductions are owners of properties of individual landmarks or owners of properties contributors to landmark districts as well as registered landmark districts. so designation of the duboce park landmark district would enable property owners to apply for the mills acted. it's not a dollar for dollar reduction. the mills act is a maintenance restoration or rehabilitation plan. it's a contract that the city enters into with the property owners, department reviews it, the city tax assessor reviews it

and ensures the calculations are correct but it's not a dollar per dollar duction. if you were a new propertier you wouldry with you out agreed to scopes of work to maintain your property. for example window repair every five years or you would agreejáñ that in seven years you would replace your roof, or if you wanted to restore certain architectural elements to the building that could be included in the process as well, or agree every five years, you're going to have a qualified contractor come in and look at the building for term iefts or water damage or retail. ultimately the historic preservation commission would also weigh in on this, look at the project to make sure it would be an important benefit to the city and the board of supervisors has the final vote. >> thank you.

we're on hold now. >> and then increase in property taxes. there were some

opponents that said it could increase the taxes. i don't know how it could if you could explain. >> if a property owner wanted to apply for mills act the department would strongly discourage that and not allow that person to apply so there is no way it will increase property taxes. >> well, there are some improvements that you would make that would raise the property taxes but that would happen anywhere. >> correct. >> and mills -- from what i am understanding from mills it's a percentage of your property tax, not dollar for dollar, but 50% of what you spend, or some percentage of what you spend on the improvements is deducted from the property taxes. >> correct. >> okay. not including the part -- okay. the only thing i

wonder is there is -- yes, the park that is there now isn't the park at 1907 obviously but it's been a park the same for a while now and the neighborhood needs assurance the city wouldn't do renovation of the park and put grass in and redwood chips. is there any assurance the park will be kept in its present state? >> the park is contributed as a contributor to the ceqa historic districts so future alterations to the park would need considered environmental review, and we did have a discussion early on with rec and park who was concerned about potentially having any review of the harvey milk center for example and we tried to emphasize it's unusual connection between the park and the buildings, the lack of a

physical separation of the roadway, these park entrances, and they understood that, and they agreed that these small were the most important areas. >> a couple more things. when you do interior changes -- let's say you want to put a new kitchen in one of these you wouldn't be necessarily restricted in how did you that. >> correct. >> you wouldn't need a certificate until it was entirely interior. >> correct. the affordable care act only applies to exterior improvements. >> >> >> and there was one gentleman that said he needed a huge number for the under grounding which is in place. i think we have the historic light post in that district but he needed a huge number of the people in

the district to do that, and he feels there wasn't -- the bar wasn't as high for this. i'm not sure how we -- >> so the planning code doesn't require owner consent for landmarks or landmark district. this effort to engage the community and conduct an online poll is at the impetus of the community and also supervisor scott wiener. we felt we did due diligence. we mailed all property owners and tenants in the district notification about the online questionnaire. the supervisor scott wiener also sent out an email to everyone that contacted his office about it and encouraged them to contact the neighbors. i sent out emails to anyone that attended any event and provided a link to the online

questionnaire. we checked to see if there were return mailings and i didn't see any. we do make copies of all the mailing labels and i did check to make sure we sent these out and i count account for why some people missed or i can't -- >> it's like a lot of people don't vote. you can't make people respond, and the final question is does this trigger any necessarily required improvements to any of the properties that are there now? >> no. it does not. >> okay. they would however could take advantage of the mills act if they wanted to take it off and restore the wood they would get the mills credit for that. >> correct. and should add the shipts in the mills act contract

can apply for low level of staff review. >> thank you. >> commissioner sugaya. >> yes, i think -- i don't want to beat the mills act to death here, but supervisor wiener did change it i think much -- it's a much better program i think than what existed previously and the mills act has been around -- i forgot, 10 years or more at this point and there have been few mills act contracts in the city because the previous program didn't work very well and hopefully this streamlining will add to more people coming forward. for example provided consulting services on at least five to six mills act contracts that were eventually approved by the city. just to give some examples the programs -- it's a state enabling legislation i guess you would term it. cities and counties around the state

can either implement it or not implement it. san diego, the city of san diego i think has probably close to 300 mills acts contracts at this point. do you know? >> i know los angeles has 500 and san diego has 1200. >> oh okay. and so i think the program does work. the program can be tailored by each city slightly, but hopefully this demonstrates that perhaps even here in san francisco property owners can benefit from the program. i also like to say that i believe the issues before the commission are slightly different than the kinds of things we have talked about so far and what people have presented because the actual recommendation for whether this should be a historic district or not, and that it meets the

criteria february being a his tordistrict. >> >> are in the purview of this historic preservation commission. it has come to the planning commission to find whether the historic district has any conflicts with things like the general plan and other sustainable policies and what not, so we're not really here to talk about windows, and we're not really here to talk about exterior alterations or interior altderations are good or bad and get reviewed or not. it's to see whether the provisions in the ordinance itself has any conflicts with the general plan and i think the staff has analyzed that very well. i just read. i can't say it any better. "the proposed district is consistent with the general plan policies in the code. the market octavia plan and the sustainable strategy for the

bay area, and will not necessitate any general plan amendments" and based on that i'm going to go ahead and make a motion that we recommend to the board of supervisors the approval of the district -- i believe the resolution wording is "that the commission hereby recommends approval article 10 of the proposed park landmark district incorporating the non substantive modifications to the designation ordinance as detailed on january 12, 2013 case report, and directs the planning department to transmit its recommendation and the comments of this commission to the board of supervisors. >> second. >> commissioner moore did you have another comment? >> yes. talk about general plan compliance as well. >> just one final comment. i think it's also important i think for the commission that

this is the first time that we've considered a historic district under the new historic preservation ordinance and i think it's also the first one the historic preservation commission has respected to the board of supervisors, so this say first for a couple of things. thank you. >> commissioner moore. >> continue on that. it's the first time that it was in all of the market octavia plan and this subject came up for years and years and consistently repeated recommendations and comments by the community that we are supporting the nomination as described by commissioner sugaya and his motion. >> commissioner antonini. >> and i also want to thank the historic preservation commission and the staff for preparing the draft for duboce park landmark

district designation went which is wonderful history to read and you learn a lot of things about san francisco's history in reading it, and particularly fernando nelson who had a 77 year career and did many areas of the city so very long and very good career. >> commissioner moore. >> i do think this a point also. thank supervisor wiener for his work and fast tracking modification and reinterpretation of the mills act. if los angeles and san diego are examples this can be used successfully in historic neighborhoods and we should be right on the heels with a large number of applications. >> commissioner sugaya. >> one last comment on the historic preservation element. i think the gentleman that testified had a copy from 1987.

you might be the only person in the city that has that. the historic preservation element was never adopted so legally technically, whatever you want to call it, there isn't a current historic preservation element in the general plan but i encourage you to make a copy of that and send it to the planning director and we previously talked about preservation element as part of the work program. >> make a copy. >> commissioners there is a motion and a second to adopt the resolution recommending approval. commissioner antonini. >> aye. >> commissioner borderon. >> aye. >> commissioner hillis. >> aye. >> commissioner moore. >> aye. >> commissioner president fong. >> aye. >> that passes unanimously and places you have item 14 at 2895 san bruno avenue. where f --

request for conditional use authorization. >> good afternoon members of the planning commission. the project at 2895 san bruno avenue proposes to demolish the gas station and construct a new development of mix used buildings total of 10 dwellings units and retail spaces and second floor business professional service uses. the building will contain approximately 14,000 square feet and 40 feet in height. there have been a number of modifications to the project since publication of the materials. however these changes were interior. it doesn't affect the facade or the footprint of the parks spaces have increased from 10 to 15 and to address the neighborhood's concern about lack of parking and this change is interior again and not affect the facade or building envelope and bike

spaces have increased also and interior and will not affect the exterior or knowledge envelope. proposition. >> >> c that is effective and reduced affordable housing requirements by 20%. the required number of affordable housing for the project has been reduced from two to one. the project will provide 10 family sized dwelling units with family stock of one of which is affordable unit. protject will convert a site into productive mix used development. it's consistent with respect to the existing neighborhood character and appropriate in fill development and complements the pattern and provides transition from highway 101 to the east and directly behind to the property to the mex use neighborhood across the street.